On January 4th, I had the pleasure of being interviewed on the Robin Falls Kids radio show. It was great fun talking about Dog Dish Diet: Sensible Nutrition for Your Dog’s Health and having the chance to reach people with my most important message: Our dogs (and cats) are individuals and need to be fed accordingly. Once pet owners understand this critical fact (and believe me that is a big step because most pet food is created for every dog or cat) they can start adjusting the diet for the needs of their individual pets. That’s where Dog Dish Diet comes in. I teach you what to look for, how to adjust the diet, what ingredients to eliminate and what foods to add.
The co-host of the show, Barbara Hodges, asked me a very important question. She asked me why I wrote Dog Dish Diet. I launched into the story of what my own animals taught me about their individual needs and how the scientist in me had to align what my dogs were “telling me” with what I had learned in vet school. And that’s all true, but I left out the number one reason why I wrote the book. So here it is: I love animals and I want their lives to be as healthy and happy as possible.
On a Mission to Teach the World How to Feed Their Pets
I spend 30 percent to 40 percent of each day in the office treating conditions (symptoms, really) that I know are caused by well-intentioned pet owners who are feeding the wrong things to their pets. Back to my original point, they are not feeding their individual dog; they are using some cookie-cutter (one-size-fits-all) dog food. In short, they must be feeding someone else’s pet because they are certainly not feeding their dog.
My own dogs taught me the importance of the RIGHT ingredients when I found that a diet I fed to my Dalmation with the touchy stomach stopped the seizures in my other two dogs. That was 10 years ago, and ever since I’ve been teaching my clients how to feed their dogs (and cats) as the individuals they are. After these many years of
successes treating dogs and cats with nutrition, I realized that there must be millions of pets suffering needlessly from being fed the wrong dog foods. That is the second reason I wrote the book.
Veterinary medicine needs to catch up with what doctors and nutritionists are learning about the importance of diet on people’s health. We’re learning to eliminate the wrong (bad) fats from our diets; we’re adding more fruits and vegetables and trying to limit our addiction to fast food and carbohydrates. We’re also paying more attention to how our bodies react to foods. Some reactions are very dangerous, such as allergies to shellfish and peanuts, others just prevent our bodies from functioning at their best, such as mild allergies to wheat and dairy.
Our pets can’t proactively change their diet. They can’t speak to us and say their tummy hurts or their body can’t tolerate beef. They can only show us through their symptoms:
- Weight gain
- Reoccurring diarrhea
- Chronic vomiting
- Constant hotspots and flaky, itchy skin
- Often red, goopy ears
- Repeated urinary infections
- Too many upset stomachs and bowel irritations
As pet owners, you have one important decision to make. You can pay your vet to keep treating symptoms or you can buy and read Dog Dish Diet and fix the actual problem once and for all.
Join the Dog Dish Diet Brigade
One woman listening to the Robin Falls Kids show commented in the online chat room that she found it refreshing to listen to a vet talk about nutrition rather than pushing medicine and more vet visits. Eureka! And that brings up is the third reason why I wrote Dog Dish Diet. I want more than pet owners to understand the importance of diet and foods; I want to generate awareness in my own profession. We were trained to treat more than prevent. Our nutrition course focused on what kibble is made of, instead of on why we feed cookies to carnivores. Many dogs and cats are fine with dry food. Many others, however, need different ingredients and healthful additions to the diet to feel and act their best.
If enough of you read my book, change what (and how) you feed your pets, and talk with your vet, we can make many more pets happier and healthier. And just maybe, together we can get both the veterinary community and commercial dog food producers to look at feeding dogs and cats differently.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
How do we determine what is the proper quantity of food to feed our 6 month dachshund puppy? She always wants more but we are concerned about over feeding her.